Whopper Winter Storm Can't Compare to '93 Superstorm

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As a massive winter storm blasts across the United States, some
may recall another huge storm that struck almost 18 years ago —
the notorious Storm of the Century.

In March 1993, a superstorm pummeled the East Coast, dumping
several feet of snow in many cities not used to such extreme
winter weather. Today's
winter storm is on a different path, one that will affect 100
million people from the Colorado Rockies to New England — almost
one-third of the country. Yet as impressive as this storm sounds,
it won't match the intensity of the Storm of the Century,
scientists said. [Related:
World's Snow Cover Seen from Space.]

"This really is a drop in the bucket compared to that
superstorm," Rich Otto, a meteorologist with the National Weather
Service, told OurAmazingPlanet.

Arctic blast

Today's storm started with cold air shooting unusually far south
from Canada. This extremely cold airmass prefers to move west to
east but the Atlantic atmospheric circulation is blocked, so it's
forced to go south, said Jeff Weber, an atmospheric scientist at
the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colo.

The fenced-in arctic blast met a pocket of cold, swirling air
that had formed thousands of feet above the ground over Texas.
Meanwhile, up ahead, winds began blowing warm, moist air from the
Gulf of Mexico.

That juicy air moves over the cold air, fueling the precipitation
that is falling across much of the country as the system moves
northeast, Otto said. Areas directly under the disturbance — such
as St. Louis — are seeing freezing rain and sleet. Areas to the
north — such as Chicago — will see
heavy snow, and areas to the south — much of the southeast —
will see mostly thunderstorms and rain.

The 1993 storm had a similar beginning, but it took an ocean
detour before moving northeast. That storm grew stronger as it
fed off the energy of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.
Today, the Gulf of Mexico is all that is powering the winter
storm.

The extra ocean energy made the 1993 superstorm much stronger
than today's storm is forecast to become, said Jake Crouch, a
climatologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville,
N.C.

One way to gauge a storm's intensity is by measuring what's
called the minimum central pressure of that storm. The lower the
number, the more intense the storm. The 1993 storm bottomed out
at 960 millibars (standard atmospheric pressure, or the weight of
the air above the surface, is about 1,013 millibars). Today's
storm may come close to that intensity, but it is not forecast to
surpass it, the scientists said.

The current storm won't match the 1993 superstorm in snowfall
either. In 1993, parts of upstate
New York were hit with 30 to 40 inches (75 to 100
centimeters) of snow.

"We're not expecting any snowfall that intense with this storm,"
Crouch said.

The current storm may top the 1993 superstorm in one dangerous
category — freezing rain. The current system is expected to bring
more freezing rain over a larger area, creating treacherous
conditions across much of the country, the scientists said.